Book Review : The Samaritan By Mason Cross

Book review: The Samaritan by Mason Cross.

The Samaritan is the 2^nd book in the brilliant carter Blake series.

Carter Blake is not a cop or a PI , Carter Blake isn’t even his real name ,with a past in a government black ops unit few have ever even heard of he spends his time now finding people that don’t want to be found, for a fee of course.

Plot:

When the mutilated body of a young woman is discovered, LAPD Detective Jessica Allen knows she's seen this MO before.

A sadistic serial killer has been operating undetected for a decade, preying on lone female drivers who have broken down. The press dub the killer 'the Samaritan', but with no leads, the police investigation quickly grinds to a halt.

That's when Carter Blake shows up to volunteer his services. He's a skilled manhunter who shares some uncomfortable similarities to the man Allen and her team are tracking. As the slaughter intensifies, Blake must find a way to stop it . . . even if it means bringing his own past crashing down on top of him.

When young women start to be abducted and then murdered and dumped in the Hollywood hills, Blake recognises the killing style and starts to think it could be someone from his Winterlong days.

As the body count starts to stack up Detective Jessica Allen starts to realise she might be out of her depth and accepts Blake’s offer of help, flying in the face of her sceptical partner Detective Jonathan Marzocco, her bosses and the FBI.

The Samaritan flips between the present day and flashbacks to the past which help give us a bit of an insight into Blake’s past, but just enough to keep the mystery there.

What follows is an absolute cracker of a thriller, The Samaritan is every bit as good as its predecessor, The Killing Season. If the next two Blake books are as good as this it won’t be long before Carter Blake is every bit as iconic as that other loveable wonderer with a mysterious past: Jack Reacher.

Verdict : Cracker.